Rare American homage to Gray: the only recorded complete copy in the U.S
A Parallel to Gray's Elegy.
Leeds: [Goodall & Suddick for] John Stansfeld, 1887.
Price: $450.00
About the item
First separate edition. With 9 etched and aquatint plates. 35, [1] pp. Printed in purple ink. 4to. Rare American homage to Gray: the only recorded complete copy in the U.S. Original vellum gilt by E. Morley of Leeds over beveled boards, covers panelled in gilt, upper cover blocked with Stanesfeld arms, spine elaborately gilt and lettered "A Christmas Card. 1887.," gilt-turn-ins, t.e.g., marbled endpapers. Some bowing to covers, but fine. Provenance: Annie Sophia Stansfeld (signature on front blank).
Item #306109
First separate edition of a work that first appeared in the Rhode Island "American," of which Knowles (1798-1838) was co-editor, in the early 1820s. It appears to have been first published in England in Byerley's 'Relics of Literature' in 1823. "Among the most felicitous efforts of [Knowles's] ... muse may be ranked the stanzas by which he proposed to supply the melancholly deficiency in Gray's Elegy in respect to the subject of religion. These stanzas were originally published in the Rhode Island American, and though written, probably, currente calamo [without deep reflection], they need not fear comparison, in point of elegiac beuty and tenderness, with the exquisite gem which Gray so carefully elaborated" (W.G. Goddard "Writings", [Providence: 1870], vol I, pp 310-311).
John Stansfeld, who produced the book as a Christmas gift to be distributed to friends, was a wealthy iron merchant of Leeds and a keen collector of Gray's work (a catalogue of his fine library, which included a number of Gray titles, was produced in 1882, as well as a single-owner catalogue for auction following his death in 1898). A contemporary notice mounted to a final blank reads, "Mr. John Stansfeld modestly styles his beautifully illustrated book 'A Parallel to Gray's Elegy'–a 'Christmas Card.' It is in reality a reproduction of the poem reprinted some time ago in Notes and Queries. He has accompanied it with nine exquisite etchings, the whole being very sumptuously printed on hand-made paper. No more charming or artistic work as been issued this season, and Mr. Stansfeld's friends deserve to be congratulated." This copy bears the signature of Annie Sophia Stansfeld, John Stansfeld's wife.
RARE: OCLC records only a single copy, at the Newberry Library, which is lacking the first three leaves, along with what appears to be a variant at the V & A.
